2026 Horror Development Lab

Cass Cervi (they/them) is a Toronto-based strategist, editor, and writer. They were the founding Poetry Editor at Queer Toronto Literary Magazine. Their web series, Confession Queens, received 2024 IPF Production Funding and is in development with Archipelago Productions. They received the Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation Grant to develop their first feature film script, Master Debaters. Their comedy pilot, Lesbionage, recently premiered at the Second City First Drafts.

James Jordan is a queer, disabled, and non-binary comedian, clown, writer, screen/voice actor, and loop musician. They’re weird. They’re the co-creator of Lesbionage (Second City First Drafts), an editor for Queer Toronto Literary Magazine, and a writer for The Beaverton, History by the Numbers, and Peculiar Radio. They’re alumni of the CanFro Showrunner Bootcamp, Webseries Canada Futures Forward program, and finalist at TOWebfest Next Up! Pitch comp and OutActraTO’s ‘Working the Scene in Rainbow.’ They’ve also written and composed music for games, journals, art installations, and news. Check them out at badmachine.ca (opens in new tab).

Mafu Émeraude Mbuku is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, producer, and arts worker based in Scarborough. Her work has been featured on CBC Gem, Apple TV, and Netflix Canada, and at festivals including Breakthroughs Film Festival, Regent Park Film Festival, Toronto Black Film Festival, CaribbeanTales International Film Festival, and St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival. She is an alumna of the CineFam Feature Film Incubator program, the OYA Media Emerging Filmmakers program, and the CaribbeanTales Media Group’s Black Incubator and Studio Access Project and Creators of Colour programs. When not making films, she runs a candle company, Catherine & Co.

Anna MacLean is a picture editor and data technician with a background in digital media and creation. Anna cut the feature-length Vermilion (2025), Compulsus (2021), the dramedy Things Like These (2026) and the comedy series Good Grief Seasons 1 & 2 (2023/2024). She wrote, directed and edited the feature documentary Boom, Baby, Boom (2015) and the award-winning absurdist short Gaslit (2024).

Anna previously worked full-time at the National Film Board of Canada as a Senior Production Coordinator (2019–2022) and an AV Specialist (2022–2024). She holds a Masters degree in Documentary Media from TMU (2015).

Brianna Russell is a screenwriter, director and playwright from Clarke’s Beach, NL, now residing in Toronto, ON. Her work focuses on queerness in media, genre filmmaking, as well as the history and folklore of her childhood home. Brianna’s proof-of-concept short Poster Child premiered at the Closing Night Gala of SJIWFF, and was a finalist in the CBC Short Film Face Off. Her short films have played at TIFF Next Wave, Blood in the Snow, and the Atlantic International Film Festival. Brianna is the 2022 recipient of the RBC Michelle Jackson Emerging Filmmaker Award, an alumni of the WIDC Career Advancement Module, and a participant in the 2024 Whistler Film Festival Screenwriters Lab. She was most recently nominated for the 2024 ArtsNL Emerging Artist Award, and was a resident of the 2025 CFC’s Norman Jewison Writers’ Lab.

Christina Dovolis is an interdisciplinary filmmaker and geographer, often working with cutting-edge technologies to explore how our built environments shape community and identity. Hailing from the Midwest, Christina draws inspiration from themes of the region: girlhood and gossip, kitschy deluxe, religious mythologies, and the complexities of urban/rural land development. As an educator and community organizer, Christina is committed to making new media programs more accessible to the public, particularly focusing on empowering women and emerging artists. She has achieved acclaim for her projects, with presentations at Museum of the Moving Image, SXSW Sydney, Aga Khan Museum, Kasseler Dokfest, Fantasia, and more.

Torrin Blades is a Toronto-based creative producer working across short film, documentary, and genre features. A 2025 graduate of the Canadian Film Centre Producers Lab and an alum of the OYA Black Arts Coalition Emerging Producer Incubator, he develops director-driven projects that amplify underrepresented voices while maintaining commercial ambition. Torrin began his career in production management for commercial clients including EA Games, TD Bank, Warner Music Group, and Ninja Tune. His narrative credits include Solemates (TIFF 2024, HKIFF 2025, Regard 2025), acquired by Ouat Media and streaming on Crave; Joychair (CFC), Teff Seeds (CFC), and POP (2024). His upcoming films include PURGE (2026), executive produced by Therapy Creative Inc., and Traces of Blue (2026), shot in South Africa. Additional credits include Together Right (Berlin Commercial Festival shortlist), Get Down (iHeartRadio MMVAs nomination), and The North Star: Finding Black Mecca (CBC Gem, Absolutely Canadian).

Findlay Ironside (she/her) is a Toronto-based filmmaker. Her work is characterized by emotionally charged narratives that explore complex family dynamics, grief, and identity through dramatic and genre storytelling. Her directorial debut, First Rites (2025) premiered at Fantasia International Film Festival, then screened at Blood in the Snow, and Toronto Short Film Festival, where it won Best Horror Film. Her body-horror short Something Borrowed (2026) premiered this past July at Fantasia Film Festival, where it won the Gold Audience Award for Best Canadian Short, then went on to screen at the Academy Award Qualifying Sitges Film Festival in Competition, and Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

Antonina Morris (she/her) is an emerging producer and screenwriter, who’s interested in stories that address nostalgia, grief, and the taboos people don’t want to talk about. She wears many hats on set, working as a production coordinator, assistant director, and producer across various projects, including three of Findlay Ironside’s films. She’s currently attached as a producer on a slate of upcoming shorts and features.

Jonathan Elliott is a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) filmmaker from the Six Nations Reserve. He has worked as a director and cinematographer on a variety of projects including Ghost Hunters of the Grand River, Beautiful Scars, The Knowing, Blue Rodeo: Lost Together, Thunder Bay and Ohskennón:ten Owí:ra (Little Deer). Jonathan’s award-winning body of work focuses on telling contemporary Indigenous stories that explore individuals’ complex relationships to their culture, families and communities.

His projects have been internationally broadcast and screened at over 100 international film festivals, including imagineNATIVE, Vancouver International Film Festival, Red Nation International Film Festival, and Maoriland Film Festival. He has directed commercials for brands such as Nike, Tim Hortons, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors, and Skip the Dishes.

Currently, Jonathan is in post-production on his Telefilm-funded feature film, Skins Game, distributed by Photon Films and starring Forrest Goodluck, Phillip Lewitski, Carmen Moore, William Belleau, Joel D Montgrand and Matthew Alan Taylor.

M. Leigh George is an award-winning Ojibway filmmaker and a member of Kettle & Stony Point First Nation and co-founder of Kettle Point Productions. A graduate of Capilano University’s Independent Indigenous Digital Filmmaking Program and the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology, he brings more than a decade of experience across film and television.

Leigh is the creator, writer and director of Rez Cops and writer-director of the award-winning short horror film Lost in Your Thoughts. He also wrote the series Original Slurs and has directed documentary and music video work recognized by imagineNATIVE, Forest City Film Festival and the Indigenous Music Countdown. His production sound credits include the CBC/APTN Indspire Awards, Hallmark productions, and the TIFF-selected feature Rosie.

Christina Clark is a producer and co-founder of Kettle Point Productions, with experience across film, television, and live events. Her credits include Associate Producer on the 2023 CBC/APTN Indspire Awards and the 2023 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival curated program, as well as production coordination for the Mino Biimadziwin / Wakya’ta’shatse Social and Indigenous Fashion Arts Festival 2024. She is also co-founder of Night Sky Theatre, a bi-annual Indigenous arts festival in Kettle & Stony Point First Nation.

Christina holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Entrepreneurship and Strategy from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Marketing diploma from George Brown College. She brings more than a decade of experience in commercial finance, business strategy and coaching to her work as a producer.

Jessyca Reeves is a writer and director who builds genre-bending stories blended with grounded drama. An alum of York University’s Cinema and Media Arts program, she focuses on telling emotionally layered stories that explore mental health, identity, and society through the lens of Black and underrepresented communities. Jessyca has written and directed multiple short films, including Reservations, The Fraying, and Unheeded, along with directing a docuseries, Youth in Conflict, and short film, Beside Achilles. She is currently developing her debut feature film, The Fraying, and her web series, For You, Paige. Jessyca is passionate about building narrative worlds that are intimate, surreal, and culturally rooted.

Jess Blackwell is a British-Canadian actor, writer, filmmaker, and producer currently based out of Toronto, Canada. She is also the festival director and head programmer for T.O. Webfest. As the founder of Lumida Productions, she is passionate about bringing to life women-led genre films that are as thought-provoking as they are engaging.

Ryan (he/him) is a queer director in the DGC, an associate member of the Canadian Cinema Editors, and member of Queer in Post (aka QUIP). He’s directed 19 short films, a digital series, and a no-budget feature film graphic novel adaptation he self-distributed. He’s also an editor, having cut all of the above as well as other short films along with the upcoming Indigenous body-horror comedy series It Doesn’t Show (dir. Bronwyn Szabo) for APTN.

He’s also had 8 films play Blood in the Snow since 2018, which might be a record?

Laura-Anne Harris (she/her) is a theatre artist, writer, screenwriter, and producer. In May 2020, she received her Master’s in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia School of Creative Writing. Her first screenplay Acting Guardian was nominated for a Cayle Chernin Media Development Award, and an early script draft made it through the Second Round at the 2023 Austin Film Festival Feature Script Competition. Her solo show Destiny, USA held its professional premiere at the 2020 Spark Festival at the Belfry Theater in Victoria, British Columbia.

Ali is a multifaceted queer artist based in Vancouver. She is an alumni of the world-famous Loose Moose Theatre Company, current faculty member in the Department of Theatre at Capilano University, and the founding Artistic Director of Tightrope Theatre, which has become a hub for high quality improv comedy in Canada.

As a filmmaker her short Down the Rabbit Hole premiered at the 2019 Toronto After Dark Film Festival and screened at the 2020 Vancouver International Women in Film Festival (GEMS). In the feature world she cut her teeth learning from Canadian indie comedy legend Bruce Sweeney, working on Kingsway (TIFF 2019) as a PM and First AD, and moved up to Producer on his next film She Talks To Strangers, which premiered at the 2023 Whistler International Film Festival and was nominated for the Borsos Award for Best Canadian Feature Film.

Ali is currently in development for a feature length slasher comedy about the cult of improv called Yes, And… Die.